Yellow Perch

The Yellow Perch (Perca flavescens), is a species of perch found in the United States and Canada. Yellow perch look similar to the European perch but are paler and more yellowish, with less red in the fins. They have 6-8 dark vertical bars on their sides. The yellow perch is in the same family as the walleye and sauger, but in a different family from the white perch.

Yellow perch size can vary greatly between bodies of water, but adults are usually between 4-10 inches in length and weigh about 5.29 ounces on average. The perch can live for up to 11 years, and older perch are often much larger than average; the maximum recorded length is 19.6 inches and the largest recorded weight is 4.2 pounds. Large yellow perch are often called “jumbo perch.”

The perch spawns at the end of April or beginning of May, depositing it upon weeds, or the branches of trees or shrubs that have become immersed in the water; it does not come into condition again until July. Yellow Perch are one of the finest flavored of all panfish, and this has led to misuse of their name in the restaurant industry. Menus will sometimes list “White Perch”, “Rock Perch” or simply “Perch” that are actually other species, usually panfish related to the bass family.

Yellow Perch haunt the neighborhood of heavy deep eddies, camp sheathings, beds of weeds, with sharp streams near trees or bushes growing in or overhanging the water.